| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Theaetetus by Plato: delicate and almost imperceptible differences we seem chiefly to derive our
ideas of distance and position. By comparison of what is near with what is
distant we learn that the tree, house, river, etc. which are a long way off
are objects of a like nature with those which are seen by us in our
immediate neighbourhood, although the actual impression made on the eye is
very different in one case and in the other. This is a language of 'large
and small letters' (Republic), slightly differing in form and exquisitely
graduated by distance, which we are learning all our life long, and which
we attain in various degrees according to our powers of sight or
observation. There is nor the consideration. The greater or less strain
upon the nerves of the eye or ear is communicated to the mind and silently
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte: experience at the same time a calm, unwarped consciousness that she
would not make me a good wife; that she is not the partner suited to
me; that I should discover this within a year after marriage; and
that to twelve months' rapture would succeed a lifetime of regret.
This I know."
"Strange indeed!" I could not help ejaculating.
"While something in me," he went on, "is acutely sensible to her
charms, something else is as deeply impressed with her defects:
they are such that she could sympathise in nothing I aspired to--co-
operate in nothing I undertook. Rosamond a sufferer, a labourer, a
female apostle? Rosamond a missionary's wife? No!"
Jane Eyre |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Vailima Letters by Robert Louis Stevenson: wardroom. The officers were awfully nice to Austin; they are
the most amiable ship in the world; and after lunch we had a
paper handed round on which we were to guess, and sign our
guess, of the number of leaves on the pine-apple; I never saw
this game before, but it seems it is much practised in the
Queen's Navee. When all have betted, one of the party begins
to strip the pine-apple head, and the person whose guess is
furthest out has to pay for the sherry. My equanimity was
disturbed by shouts of THE AMERICAN COMMODORE, and I found
that Austin had entered and lost about a bottle of sherry!
He turned with great composure and addressed me. 'I am
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